


Time Flies

by checkthemargins



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, prompt ficlet, time travel crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 22:05:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1242262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/checkthemargins/pseuds/checkthemargins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Present Louis is dealing with his rather excitable past self. It hurts more than it has any right to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Flies

**Author's Note:**

> Tiny ficlet from a tumblr meme. The prompt was "Louis/Louis Goofy Kiss" which I actually thought was "Underwater kiss". Either way I failed on both counts however enjoyed the angst. :)
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own anything. This is just for fun. Etc. Etc. Etc.

**Time Flies**

His younger self is loud, and annoying, and humiliating. He’s immature and too honest and too open. He wears stripes and tight red trousers and his arms are small and soft. It’s like picking at a scabbed-over wound, looking at him. Sometimes Louis remembers being like that, and it always makes him hang his head in embarrassment, like whenever he sees an article quoting his old Bebo or something.

"What day is it where you’re from again?" Louis asks him. They’ve decided to just call him Tommo, for ease’s sake. He popped up in Louis’s bloody bed almost thirty-four hours ago. He’s in the pool, now, in a pair of Louis’s swim trunks that are actually a bit small on him around the waist. Louis’s wearing swim trunks as well but still has a t-shirt on. He’s only dangling his feet in the water. Tommo’s all bare, no ink anywhere, and he hates Louis’s.

"Sunday," says Tommo, and splashes at Louis lazily. He’s sort of dog paddling around like an idiot. Too much energy. He’s probably scared.

"Not what I meant." Tommo stops in front of him with the bottom half of his face underwater. When he comes back up he spits a long arch of pool water all over Louis’s torso and legs. It would be funny if it were happening to like, Liam. "Mature."

"Tch! Maturity is over rated. We’re Peter Pan, you know, all the fans say so."

"We’re like Peter Pan in Hook, though. All grown up. Disillusioned."

"All work and no play, rolling around in our money?" says Tommo. "This house is sick, though. Where’s Harry?"

He’s asked it fourteen or fifteen times. Louis hasn’t answered honestly.

"He’s got his own money to roll around in."

"We made a pact," Tommo sniffs. "Me an’ Hazza did. We’re going to get a joint bank account and buy a house in every country, once we can afford it."

"How do you know you’ll be that successful?"

Tommo gives him a familiar incredulous look. "Look at this house, mate."

"You didn’t know before though, did you? What day was it?"

Tommo laughs, doing a backstroke to the other side of the pool, away from Louis. "December eleventh, two-thousand and eleven. We’re about to leave on our first headlining tour!"

He swims back over, and wraps his hands around Louis’s ankles. He’s very handsy, Louis remembers that, wanting to touch everyone all the time, the buzz of adrenaline and fear and excitement and awe tingling in his fingertips all the time. He remembers almost suffocating from it, and tackling Liam in hugs that Liam didn’t know if he was allowed to return, and wrestling with Zayn, and tickling Niall until Niall was crying from laughing, and Harry. 

He remembers touching Harry all the time, every second he could. Gripping his skinny hips and pulling him in close and pinching his love handles and twists his nipples and stroking his hair and holding him when was sad or hurting and crying against him when Louis was the one who needed it. Kissing him all over, everywhere, tasting every inch of him.

"Oh," he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

"Come in the water," says Tommo.

"I’m fine right here," says Louis.

He should’ve known better, of course, because Tommo tugs at his legs until he’s unbalanced and then grabs him round the waist and Louis topples in gracelessly with a yelp. Tommo’s laughing when Louis surfaces, and he parts the curtain of Louis’s wet hair that’s covered his face and kisses him.

Louis pushes his hair back and blinks his eyes open, chlorine stinging, and Tommo is standing right there. Louis hasn’t grown an inch since then. They’re the exact same height. Tommo’s fringe is slicked back out of his face and God, but he looks young. Louis was so _young_ , once.

"You kissed me."

"I kissed me," says Tommo, shrugging. "It’s like masturbation."

"I guess," says Louis. This kid _is_ him, after all. He remembers this. He’s fighting the urge to dunk Tommo under water and crow in triumph as they speak, even though he’s trying really hard to be responsible and adult right now. When Tommo kisses him again he kisses back. It’s a bit weird, and wet from pool water, and really fucking hot. Louis cups the back of Tommo’s head in his hand and presses his tongue to the seam of his mouth and Tommo opens right up, pliant and willing, belly up for it the way Louis always was back then. He tastes like chlorine and skin and mouth. Louis’s shirt is clinging to his skin. Tommo’s hands touch his belly through it.

"I make you sad," says Tommo, when the kiss breaks and they’re breathing heavy, wrapped close together in the shallow end. There’s no music on or anything. It’s just quiet.

"A bit," Louis allows. He can be honest with himself, can’t he?

"Why?"

Louis shakes his head slowly. Their foreheads rest together. His eyes are inexplicably stinging and his chest feels tight. "Was fun to be you. Miss being you, sometimes."

Tommo reaches between them and touches Louis’s lips. "Where’s Harry?"

Louis shakes his head. "Not here. He doesn’t live here. He never did. It’s just me."

Tommo is very still for a few moments, hardly breathing. He’s not an idiot. _Louis_ wasn’t an idiot at nineteen. He had to have guessed. "Oh," he says, and his voice is small.

"I’m sorry," says Louis.

"Was it your fault?"

"I don’t know," Louis whispers. It hurts, sometimes, is all. Everything just really hurts sometimes. He takes a deep, wet breath. "Kiss me again."

Tommo does. He’s good at it. He’s been kissing Harry a lot. They’ve just had their second full on fuck not too long ago, at the beginning on December. They’ve each had a go now. It’s all exciting and fun and happy and good. They mean the world to each other.

When it breaks it’s sudden, and Louis stumbles forward. He’s alone in the pool and there’s a pile of clothes – striped t-shirt, red trousers – on the floor by the chaise lounges. Louis covers his mouth with one hand and his face crumples.

It takes him a long time to catch his breath.


End file.
